


The fate they didn't want

by JoyBooth



Category: Pitch (TV 2016)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-13
Updated: 2019-02-22
Packaged: 2019-10-27 06:39:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 8,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17761718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JoyBooth/pseuds/JoyBooth
Summary: A soulmate AU





	1. Chapter 1

Whoever decided that soul mates would have shared dreams was an idiot. At least, that was Mike Lawson’s opinion. Soul marks or a count down on your arm or any actual, physical evidence would have been so much better. Dreams were dreams. They were ephemeral. He dreamed of a blonde woman with blue eyes when he was eighteen. Was that his soulmate, or just the random fantasy of a teenage boy? He had heard that once you met your soulmate, the shared dreams became stronger memories, but still the whole idea was silly. By the time he was starting in the majors, he had decided that he didn’t have a soulmate. Lots of people didn’t. It actually made life easier, because he could enjoy time with any available woman, he found attractive. No more waiting for some mystery girl. No more feeling let down when he discovered his date wasn’t the one.

Whoever decided that soul mates would have shared dreams was an idiot. At least, that was Ginny Baker’s opinion. In fact, soulmates in general were stupid. Two people could be soulmates, and still not be happy together. Her parents were a prime example. That was why Ginny was so happy that on the rare occasion that she remembered her dreams, they were only about baseball. 

Things changed when Mike met Rachel. He was 25 and making a name for himself. She was working as a local sports newscaster. Her soulmate had died years before, and she was ready to move on. They hit it off. Within six months they were married. 

Things changed when Ginny’s father died. She wanted someone in her life. She wanted someone to love and count on. She had to be careful though. It only took one wrong move to lose the respect of her team. She made the rule that she would never date baseball players.

When Rachel’s career took off, Mike was proud. They were determined to make it work. The first year was a lot of flying and driving for both of them. As time went on, though, they found more and more reasons to avoid making the trips. After his first injury, she asked him about taking a step back. Mike was shocked. Baseball was his life. It was all he had ever known. He wanted to make his wife happy, but he didn’t want to give up his dreams.

Ginny made an exception for Trevor. He was sweet and fun to hang out with. They had a lot in common because of baseball, but the also liked watching cheesy action movies and listened to similar music. He made her feel good about herself. He believed in her talent. He had sad from the very beginning, he wasn’t going to be a ball player much longer, until he got the call that changed everything. 

Then the dreams started. It was never anything specific. He was crouched behind the plate. Pitch after pitch hit the glove with a satisfying smack. The pitcher was a mystery though. Whenever he tried to look at the mound instead of the ball 1`12flying toward him, he woke up. The pitch itself was strange, a little screwy. The dreams were always peaceful and happy. He took it as a sign that he wasn’t done with baseball. When he walked in on Rachel with another guy, he realized he was done with her. 

Ginny was on a bus traveling back to El Paso after a double header, the first time she remembered having the dream. She was on the mound, nothing new, but when she set and looked toward the plate, she saw Mike Lawson. She was startled for a moment, but then reset and threw the ball. It was just a dream, why not enjoy playing with someone she knew was one of the best in the game. 

The dream didn’t happen very often. Some nights he dreamed of flying, purple pie eating monsters, or even his father. It took almost a year for him to realize something was different about the catching dream as he called it. There was something about the player that was unusual. He realized it was a woman who was pitching. Every time he woke from the dream, he tried to remember the pitchers face, but he never could. 

The dream didn’t happen very often. Some nights she dreamed of the accident that killed her father, a pack of ostriches attacking her, or, if she was lucky, she would dream of walking on a beach near her grandma’s house. It took almost a year for her to mention the dream to her brother. 

“Maybe he’s your soulmate?” Will offered. He hadn’t met his soulmate yet, but he had caught a few glimpses of her. 

“No. There’s no way that Mike Lawson is my soulmate. He was married until recently, remember,” she laughed a little frantically. 

“Not everyone waits for their soulmate. Some people think they don’t have one. Maybe that’s why the marriage didn’t work out.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Ginny insisted. “I’m sure it’s just me wanting to play with him. I mean if I make it to the majors, he would be my catcher.”

“Maybe,” Will shrugged. He knew his sister’s opinion of soulmates. No sense in talking to someone about something they don’t believe in. 

Mike was having a rough week. The car dealership he owned was having some issues with cars being vandalized. His doctor had told him he had the knees of a sixty-year-old, and he had just met with his agent. Apparently, one of the sponsorship deals he had set up fell through. He was in no mood to break in a new pitcher. The fact that said pitcher was a woman and the clubhouse had been turned upside down was just the straw that broke the camels back. She came walking up to him all sunshine and innocence and he just snapped. 

Mike Lawson was a dick. The fact that she had spent time dreaming of playing with him, annoyed her more than she cared to admit. She was glad she had never told anyone but Will about the dreams. They were obviously a warning of some kind. Ginny fell asleep that night promising she would never dream of him again. 

He was at peace behind the plate. He was always behind the plate. He looked at the mound sure the faceless pitcher would be set to throw, but it wasn’t her. It was Ginny Baker. 

“Aw, what the hell?’ she groaned, her arms dropping from the set position. 

“What the hell, yourself?” Mike snapped back. 

Ginny ignored him. Instead, she started pacing the mound, naming off every catcher she would rather toss the ball around with. “Buster Posey, Gary Sanchez, Wilson Contreras, Tyler Flowers, Chirinos, Realmuto…”

“What are you doing?” he asked jogging closer. 

She blinked at him. In all the other dreams, they had never spoken to each other. 

He raised his eyebrows, waiting for an answer. 

She shook her head and turned to pace in the other direction. “Barnes, Zunino…”

Mike looked around, not sure what else to do. A bat materialized at home plate. He made his way back, if only he had a…. A ball dropped from nowhere. He gave it a gentle toss into the air, then slammed it into mid field. Ginny whipped around at the sound of the crack. 

“What are you doing?” she shouted. 

“Batting practice?”

“You’re in my dream. Why would you be having batting practice? Shouldn’t you disappear or something?”

“I think you got this backwards, Rookie. You’re in my dream. I’ll catch if your throwing, but if you’re gonna keep rattling off the names of other catchers, I have better things to do.” 

A look passed over her face which he immediately placed as fear. He thought that was strange. Why would a figment of his imagination be afraid? He was about to ask her about it when she disappeared, and the field became Ms. Mitchel’s biology classroom. 

Ginny felt the breath in her chest catch. Will couldn’t be right. It wasn’t possible. Her vision started to get spotted. She closed her eyes. When she opened them again, she was still gasping for breath in her bed. She went to the bathroom and splashed a little water on her face. It was just a dream, there was no way Mike Lawson was her soulmate.


	2. Game day

He had dreamed of Baker, which was weird. Then again, the whole interaction with her the day before had been weird. It went from annoying, to interesting to exciting in under a minute. He didn’t think too much about what she said in the dream, even though he could remember it almost as well as he could remember what she had said to him during practice. He needed to focus on the game. 

The day was not going how she wanted. After a terrible night sleep, she had been forced to abandon her pregame ritual in exchange for another press conference. On the field everything was too loud, too bright and too real. It was happening. Ginny was pitching in the majors. Unfortunately, she was doing a terrible job. The first time Lawson jogged to the mound, she was mad at him for not giving her a chance. Then the memories started buzzing in her ear. She’d worked so hard to get here. She knew this was her one shot. All she had to do was throw a damn strike. If only her hands would stop shaking, and her chest didn’t feel like an elephant was sitting on it. By the time Al was making his way to her, she was defeated. 

Watching her on the mound was painful. He cringed with each ball flying wildly toward the plate. They shouldn’t have called her up. It was just too much pressure. He could see the cracks starting to form from sixty feet six inches away. The second walk to the mound he expected more attitude. The panicked, breathy ‘get me out of the game’ shocked him. This wasn’t the mouthy girl he had met at practice or the confident mystery pitcher from his dreams. 

That night she didn’t dream, or at least she didn’t remember her dreams. Ginny was glad. The last person she wanted to see was Mike Lawson. After her second press conference of the day, she couldn’t even look at the stadium, let alone the team and captain she had let down. The memory of her father had dragged her back to practice, some sort of penance for her failure. By the time she crawled into bed every muscle ached including her heart. 

That night he didn’t dream, or at least he didn’t remember his dreams. Mike was glad. The last person he wanted to see was Ginny Baker. He was so disappointed in her. How could she just give up on her dream? 

Walking into a fight in the locker room was nothing new. Being the subject of said fight was nothing new, and yet this time it was different. She had let everyone down and she knew it. Still, she held her head high and did what she was supposed to.

Mike was sick of talking about Ginny Baker. Every press conference was centered around her. A small voice in the back of his head said that if he was stressed, she must be much worse, but he ignored that voice. He joked, changed the subject and got ready to meet Blip for guys night. Hopefully he would meet someone who would get Baker off his mind. 

Even after a pep talk from Ev, Ginny was terrified as she took the field for her second game in the MLB. If she couldn’t pull this off, she was getting sent down for sure. The first two pitches were awful. Again, Mike was jogging to the mound. His speech was oddly exactly what she needed to hear. The humor and self-aggrandization that coated his gentle reminder to be the ball player he knew she could be was perfect. When Al confirmed that she was sticking around, the last of the weight was lifted from her shoulders. 

Even after his talk with Blip, Mike wasn’t sure about her. He had always reacted badly to things that felt like betrayal, but Blip was right. It couldn’t be easy to keep showing up at the field. He saw her at practice each day. Her talent was undeniable. He had to give her a chance. The jog out to the mound after the first two balls, he knew something had to change. As soon as he told her to ignore the little girls and be a ballplayer, he saw something shift. She was there. She was a gamer. The next six innings proved it. 

The post-game meal could have gone better. She had won over a few of the guys, but the media coverage was awful. More than ever, she wished that they would just forget she was a woman. The saving grace was Blip with his easy laughs. Mike coming up behind her at the bar, had been a surprise, but a pleasant one. It was nice to know that his little speech wasn’t a one-time thing. He had her back. 

The post-game meal could have gone better. If it weren’t for the damn commentators running their mouths, Ginny would have been much better off. She had a natural charm and knew how to handle awkward comments with humor. Blip was right. She needed someone to have her back, if it helped Al too, that was just icing on the cake. 

She was on the mound again. The stadium was empty, and she wasn’t dressed for pitching. No ball or glove appeared no matter how much she thought about them. Finally, she just laid down in the grass and looked up at the stars. The stadium lights were dim enough for her to make out the few constellations she could remember. 

“Baker?” a voice asked. She turned to see Mike laying next to her. 

Shit, she thought. She had really been hoping her hunch was wrong. “Lawson?”

“Fancy meeting you here again.”

He seemed to not understand what it meant. She wondered if he was being purposefully obtuse or just not thinking. 

“I had a good time tonight.” He commented his own gaze on the sky above. 

“Me too.”

“I always liked Orion. Where ever I was living, and we moved a lot growing up, I could find that line in the sky.”   
“I’m not great at remembering the different constellations, but I like to make my own. We, my brother and I, used to lay in the yard and watch the stars.” 

“That must have been nice. It was just my mom and me growing up, but that was for the best. She wasn’t cut out to be a mom. It took almost as much therapy to deal with her as to get over my ex.”

Ginny nodded, not sure what to say. If he thought this was just an ordinary dream, he probably didn’t mean to tell her that much about himself. Still, she felt the need to give him something back. “My mom was the picture-perfect house wife and mother, and I still caught her making out with someone who was not my dad. Maybe there is no such thing as a ‘perfect mom’.” 

Mike seemed to think about that for a while. It was nice to lay on the ground without the back pain that usually plagued him while he was awake. This dream Ginny was easy to talk to. He didn’t remember how the dream ended when he woke up.


	3. LA road trip

She saw Mike pull up in his flashy car with some girl, and the message was clear. Either he wanted her to know that he was not interested, or he had no idea they were soulmates. Ginny got on the bus without looking at him, but as other players made it clear that her presence wasn’t welcome, she wondered if she would ever find a place she belonged. Turning she saw Mike pointing at the seat beside him. 

Mike rattled off about her need to trust his calls. Then he quickly changed to talking about his ex, and how he was cursed to be irresistible to women. Before she could even come up with a response, he was back to talking about the game. Maybe she was wrong about him opening up only in their shared dreams. The drive was going well, until yet another news story about her came up. She wanted to disappear. Al’s comments were nothing new, but some part of her felt betrayed. Mike glaring at Al beside her, seemed to show that she wasn’t the only one. 

Mike was annoyed. Al had opened them up to more bull shit. He was the one to come to Mike last night. Al was the one expecting him to smooth out the drama and yet he was making fires as fast as Mike could put them out. Mike knew that Al didn’t mean it the way it sounded. Al was a good guy, but he had screwed up. 

When Mike got to the gym later, he was surprised to find Ginny already working out. It was nice to have someone to keep up with, to challenge and to be challenged by. 

The game that night was a mess. He wanted to knock their heads together. Stupid mistakes were happening all over. He understood that the guys were not happy, but how could they not see the bigger picture? He didn’t remember his dreams that night, but he ran into Ginny the next morning. 

She was enjoying breakfast when he came breezing into the dining room. His smile was as dazzling as when she had first seen it his rookie season. He sat down at her table as if it were the most logical thing in the world to do. As if they had eaten together a million times before. She was already feeling weird about the whole Kimmel thing when he mentioned that she was bigger than the game. Amelia appearing and admitting that she had not done as Ginny had asked was infuriating. 

Mike was proud of Ginny for trying to do the right thing, even if her agent had stopped her. He was still feeling better when he got to Rachel’s house. The nostalgia of going through their old memories made him consider what the trainer had said. Maybe Ginny coming up was the beginning of the end. He could get her set up, then retire to a life with Rachel. 

Of course, that was all turned on it’s head when she announced that she was getting married. He couldn’t believe he had almost been sucked in again. It wasn’t Rachel’s fault. Rationally, he knew it wasn’t her he was missing. It was the companionship of having someone in his life. When he snapped on the other players in the locker room later that night, it was a breaking point. He wanted more from life, but he had no idea how to get it. 

Looking in the mirror she couldn’t deny that hair, makeup and wardrobe had done a great job. She looked like herself, but a glamourous version of herself. She walked out still trying to decide what to do. She wanted to support Al, his talk in the locker room had gone a long way toward winning her forgiveness. Mike’s words echoed in her mind, she was bigger than the game and she could use her fame to do something good. Trying to figure out what exactly to say wasn’t easy at first, but once she started talking, she couldn’t stop. She was able to say what was on her mind. Leaving the stage felt like a mic drop. She breezed out of the sound stage without a word to Amelia. The game was like magic. Everything came together. She knew they hadn’t seen her interview, it would air later that night, but something had changed. Her team was working again. 

The game was like magic. Everyone was working together in harmony. The grin on Ginny’s face as he came down into the dugout and the playful laugh that rang out as he gave her a tap on the ass made him grin right back. That night in the bar he watched her on the dance floor with a few of the guys. He felt something but dismissed it quickly. She probably had a soulmate out there somewhere, anyway. 

She was on the dance floor again, even though she was sure she had gone to bed. The room was full of faceless bodies dancing to all her favorite songs. She looked back to the booth the team had claimed as their own, and only Mike sat there looking back at her. Oh, it’s a dream, she thought. She danced one more song before joining him in the booth. 

“Why won’t you dance?” she asked.

He thought for a moment, “I’m too old for that nonsense.” He would have complained about his knees, but in truth they didn’t hurt. He realized it was a dream, about Baker, again. 

“That was a great game today.”

“Yeah, we really had it out there,” he agreed.

They lapsed into quiet, enjoying the music which had slowed to some old jazz song her dad used to play when he picked the driving music. Ginny was searching her mind for a topic that would not make him think she was anything other than a figment of his imagination. 

“I guess we could dance,” he sighed, heaving himself out of the booth. 

“Really? What changed in the last five minutes?”

“The music is slower now.”

She didn’t argue, just took his hand and was folded neatly into his arms as they swayed gently. The music stayed slow for a long time. Ginny felt a calm pass over her that she could never remember feeling before.


	4. Beanball

Mike woke up with a beautiful woman in his arms and no memory of his dream the night before. He was relieved. It had been a few days since they got back from LA and he hadn’t dreamed of Ginny since then. She hadn’t mentioned the dreams at their daily workouts. He figured it must have been the novelty of her being his first female teammate in 20 years. Surely that was why she was on his mind so much lately. Whatever he thought about before he went to sleep was usually what ended up dreaming about. 

 

Ginny was relieved that the dreams seemed to be gone. She had enough to worry about with Miller coming back and Trevor being in town. She hadn’t thought about him in years. It was a reminder of why she couldn’t trust men. It would have been easy to hate him if he was really an asshole, but the fact that he cared about her and she about him, but it wasn’t enough, really twisted the knife. 

The bottle of champagne from Drake had been passed to him by a clubby when he and Blip were walking in. The decision to open the card had been made without a word. He made a big deal of saying it loud enough for everyone to hear as he passed her the bottle and couldn’t hold back a laugh when she told off the guys in the same breath as she denied her interest in Drake. 

Lawson sauntered in with a bottle of champagne from Drake. She was surprised that Mike’s invasion of privacy barely bothered her. She found his teasing more amusing than irritating. How was this her life? She was shocked that Drake even knew her name. Mike’s ‘bigger than the game’ echoed again. Luckily, it was easy to put off her teammates annoying questions about her love life. They were mostly good guys, even if Miller was being a dick. 

When he was going over hitters with her while getting adjusted, he noticed something was off. He had heard Miller’s parting jab and wondered if she was just worried about being sent down. Her comment about the code and the fire in her eyes, made him wonder if she would really do it. They had developed a friendship quickly. The teasing back and forth was one of the highlights of his day, but he didn’t know her that well. Throwing a pitch at a player was a big deal. Doing it in retaliation for the injury of a player who treated you like shit was just crazy. 

She took the mound knowing she was going to do it. Whatever Mike had said about other ways, he was wrong. This was something she needed to do, for Miller, for the team and for herself. As she set, she heard a voice in the back of her mind, chanting ‘don’t do it’. It sounded like Lawson, but she couldn’t think about that. She threw right at Falcone. He looked like he might come right at her, but she was ready. The ump gave his warnings, but she knew she had done the right thing. Falcone tried to scare her, but she wouldn’t be intimidated. 

Mike walked out to the mound. It wasn’t that she was a girl. It was because he had seen more than one player taken out in beanball wars. 

“You called for a fastball. I threw a fastball.” She snapped without an ounce of fear. 

“The way it works is you hit their pitcher,”

“They get to hit me, I know.”

He smacked the ball into her mitt and stormed away. He had to give her credit for her fearlessness, but a small voice in the back of his head was telling him something bad was going to happen. 

Ginny was riding high on a wave of adrenaline and bravado, until they called up the Mountain, and Trevor. Then the mountain threw 3 balls so far from her that it was laughable. She couldn’t believe it. They were not going to hit her.

Mike couldn’t believe Baker was going out there. He was trying to figure out exactly how fast he could get to her when the action started at home plate as the Mountain threw three wild pitches no where near Ginny. He was almost relieved, until he felt a well of rage filling him up. She was right, they weren’t going to hit her because she was a girl. 

The last ball was the last straw, she couldn’t take it anymore. She was storming toward the mound before Trevor got in front of her. He was trying to be the good guy. Trying to protect her. It just made her want to take him down even more. Luckily, Miller launched himself at Trevor. The next second all hell broke lose as players streamed onto the field. 

Mike went toward the Mountain who was still on the mound looking, honestly, a little afraid. 

“I wasn’t going to hit her, Mike. I swear.” 

Mike believed the taller man. He held him as the chaos rippled around them. He wondered why he had been so angry the moment before. Really, he had been hoping she would take her base, and this would all be over. Ginny and Miller were ejected from the game. Mike was relieved. She got what she wanted. She got to be one of the boys. As they walked away, Mike knew she had earned a friend in Miller. 

After her talk with Trevor, she felt like the world was caving in. The one time she had let her guard down, was going to bite her in the ass. She came around the corner to find Mike waiting for her. She tried to brush him off, but Trevor’s words stuck with her. Maybe he wasn’t the kind of soulmate she would have a romantic relationship with, but that was ok. Maybe sharing baseball and having someone to talk to would be enough.


	5. The break

With her mom coming to visit, Mike was in dreams three nights in a row. They were nothing specific. One night she was pitching, same as usual. She didn’t even talk to him, but the calm was there. She still felt it when she woke up in the morning. The next night they were at the driving range. Again, they didn’t talk, or at least not about anything important. 

Then came the night her mom arrived. She should have been excited. The All-Star game her rookie season. It was a big deal, but her mom just didn’t understand. She sat at a bar watching the hype for the all-star game, wondering how she was going to prove she belonged there, when he sat down beside her. 

“I’ve been seeing you a lot lately, Rookie. You don’t happen to know why, do you?”

“Probably the stress,” she shrugged. 

“because of the All-Star game?”

“That, yeah, and my mom’s visiting, and she’s pissed at me because I am going to be tied up in this game stuff for her entire visit.” She answered without thinking for once. 

“Baker?” he asked as if he was surprised.

She looked over at him and saw a flicker of realization. “I mentioned it to you this morning.”

“No, you didn’t,” he said slowly. She could almost see him putting it together. “You’re really you, aren’t you?”

“What?” she asked innocently.

“Don’t fuck around with me, Rookie. Why are you in my dream? Why have you been in my dreams every night this week?”

“Why do you think?”

He knew there was only one answer, but it didn’t make any sense. “No, that can’t be.”

“If it can’t be then I must be a figment of your imagination and all of this is because of the Thai food you ate before you went to bed.”

“You knew,” he accused. 

“Knew you ate Thai food? Of course, I did. I’m in your head.”

“No, you knew you were my… I mean we are… you and me, we…”

“We are teammates. That is all. Just two people who are on the same team.”

“How long have you known?”

“Mike, this is just a dream. You won’t remember in the morning. It’s not what you think.”

“How long, Ginny?”

She was trying to wake herself up. She had been trying since she saw the flicker of realization in his eyes. Finally, it worked. She sat up in her bed. She was thinking about how close it had been and what she would say to him in the morning, when her phone rang. She ignored it the first time. It rang again almost immediately. 

“Hello?” she answered, pretending she was still half asleep.

“How long?” he demanded again. 

“The night we met.”

“You knew when we met?” 

“No, that night after we met, I said…”

“You thought I was in your dream. Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Why didn’t you?” 

“I thought they were just dreams.”

“See, this is why soulmates are so stupid. I’ve been dreaming of you for years, and I just thought it was because I wanted to get to the Padre’s and play in the MLB.”

“Years?”

“Don’t let it go to your head, old man. We were just playing baseball, until I met you in real life. That was when the other stuff started happening.”

“So, it was you…”

“What?” she asked. She had honestly thought the dreams before they met were hers alone. 

“I dreamed of you before. I didn’t know it was you. It was just a faceless pitcher, but it felt the same.”

“What does that mean?” Ginny snapped defensively.

“In the dreams everything feels calm and relaxing. I felt comfortable telling you things I haven’t told anyone.”

Ginny chewed her lip. She hadn’t put that together. Now that she thought about it, their shared dreams were generally peaceful except when she got mad at him the day they met. 

“So, why didn’t you tell me when you figured it out?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Of course, it matters. We’re soulmates.”

“So?”

“So, we are destined to be together. I was wandering around thinking I didn’t have a soulmate, that I didn’t deserve one, and you were right here in front of me.”

“Mike, everyone deserves to be happy, especially you, but being soulmates doesn’t mean what you think,” she sighed.

“How would you know?”

“I already told you, because I saw my mom cheating on my dad. They were supposed to be each other’s everything, and instead he ignored her to pour all his time and energy into making me a ballplayer, and she coped by finding someone else.” After all the times he had been honest and open with her while in their dreams, she finally opened up in return. 

“Maybe they weren’t…”

“They were. They would talk about their shared dreams all the time when I was a kid, but they drifted apart as I got older and the laughing stopped and the joking stopped, and by the end they barely even spoke to each other. I don’t want that. I don’t want you to want me because we share dreams, because some people think that means we are meant to be.”

“What about what I want?”

“You didn’t even realize. Your life was what you wanted before today. I seem to remember something about being irresistible to woman? If I hadn’t slipped tonight, we could have gone on forever without you ever knowing.”

“You should have told me,” he insisted. “My life isn’t everything I wanted. If I had known…”

“I don’t date ballplayers. This isn’t going to change that.”

“So, you don’t care about me at all? You let me tell you all that stuff and didn’t think I had a right to know it was really you?” 

“I didn’t say that. I tried to steer the conversations away from personal things. I probably should have told you, but I knew this would never work. I didn’t want to admit what this was even to myself. As long as you didn’t know I could pretend that it was just dreams. I mean, think about if the press found out. You thought ginsanity was bad, wait until they give us a ship name and start writing fanfics. This is the kind of shit that starts a fandom that lasts longer than most relationships. And that’s not even how it would effect our team or the teams we play.” 

There was a long moment of quiet from his end of the line.

She sighed again, “I thought maybe this was how it was supposed to be. We would be platonic soulmates. We would share this game and spend time together as friends. I like what we have.”

“I like what we have too,” he admitted. Their shared dreams had relieved the ever-present loneliness since Rachel left. If it was what Ginny wanted, maybe he could make it work. She was right about the team and press. They would probably lose their minds if they ever found out. Thinking about everyone’s reactions reminded him of something.

She took his silence as agreement. “Good, then we keep things the way they are.”

 

“Ok, but there is something I need to tell you,” he mumbled nervously.

“Ok?”

“I’ve been seeing someone.”

“It’s fine, Mike. You didn’t know, and even if you had we aren’t together. You don’t need my permission or approval.”

“I know, but I wanted to tell you before I knew.”

“Why?”

“Because I’ve been seeing Amelia.”

“Amelia? My agent?”

“Yeah, I wanted to tell you but she didn’t think it was a good idea.”

“Oh, well, like I said who you see is not really my business, but thanks for letting me know.”

Mike didn’t know what to say to that. Nothing had really changed, and yet everything had. He had a soulmate. He knew who she was. More than that she was his friend. He never thought of soulmates not being romantically linked. As a child, he thought that was why he had been rejected by his own father. Dave Grissom loved his soulmate too much to leave her or hurt her by introducing his illegitimate son. Still, if Ginny wanted to keep things the way they were, he didn’t see a reason to argue. 

“It’s pretty late, though, Lawson,” Ginny faked a yawn. 

“Yeah, of course. I’ll see you in the morning?”

“Yeah,” she agreed and hung up. She didn’t go back to sleep though. She didn’t want to see him again in her dreams. She didn’t know how she felt about him seeing Amelia, but she didn’t feel like she had a right to question it. She wasn’t going to date him, so why shouldn’t he see other people...


	6. The break (part 2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The all star game

Watching the homerun derby did nothing to ease her nerves. Ball after ball sailed into the stands. Mike tired to distract her, but it was no good. She could tell he was just as stressed out as she was. Walking down the tunnel she decided to open up.   
“Turns out watching the homerun derby is not the cure for feeling like a fraud,” she sighed. 

“You’re not a fraud.”

“I should be going over the hitters with you tonight, not going to dinner with my mom. She’s just going to make me feel guilty.”

“You want me to come?”

“Would you?”

“Sure. Moms love me.”

Ginny rolled her eyes and laughed. 

“I gotta do a little prep work for this broadcast thing, but I can grab a bite.”

“That would be amazing. Thank you! How did that go, by the way?”  
“I crashed and burned, but I think I can rally.”

“Of course, you can. You’re Mike Lawson, you can do anything,” she teased. “By the way I invited Amelia to dinner too.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, you should talk to her about the broadcasting stuff, if you haven’t already. She’s the best.”

Mike didn’t know what to say. He really wasn’t sure about the platonic soulmates thing, but if Ginny was going to play it cool, he was too. “You’re right. I’ll talk to her tonight.”

Mike was walking into the restaurant when he heard Ginny’s panicked voice. 

“It’s him. Oh god, it’s him.” Then the flash of a memory he could tell he was seeing through her eyes. Shit, did I just… he blinked and looked around to see Ginny arguing with the woman he assumed was her mother.   
“There you are,” he called. He could tell from the look on Ginny’s face that she was barely clinging to civility. He tried to divert both women’s attention. “oh, Ginny didn’t tell mw she invited her sister.”

“Don’t bother. She’s taken,” Ginny snapped. Luckily, Amelia walked in behind him and distracted them again. “Hey Amelia, I’m glad you’re here. Mom, you remember my manager, Amelia.”

“Yes, how nice to see you again,” Janet forced a smile.

“We were just heading to our table.”

“Oh good, you’re here,” Amelia laughed when she got a moment with Mike. “This is going to be fun.”

“Yeah, I had to tell Ginny about us, just so you know.”

Amelia’s brow crinkled for a moment, before she could cover it with her placid business face again. “I thought we agreed… you know what, we can do this later. We had better get in there before Ginny gets in any trouble.”

Dinner was awkward but Mike, Kevin and Amelia tried to keep the conversation light. 

“So, how long you two been a couple?” Kevin asked. 

Amelia giggled nervously. 

“We’ve been seeing each other for a few weeks,” Mike answered. 

Unfortunately, Amelia tried to change the subject in the worst way possible. “How long have you two been together?”

Mike heard Ginny’s dry chuckle in his head. 

“Oh, um… a little over a year now?” Janet answered. 

“A year? Really?” Ginny chimed in. Mike wasn’t sure about their connection but he tired to send her a thought. You don’t want to do this right now, Rookie, came from the back of her mind. She blinked and looked over at Mike. He raised his brows and gave her a meaningful look, but her mom kept talking. 

“Well, I mean, we knew each other from a distance. Kevin is from, Tarboro, where we’re from, but we…”

“I was married until recently,” Kevin cut in. “Just got a divorce about a year ago.” 

Of course, he was. Ginny griped. Isn’t that convenient that they been together pretty much since he got divorced? I bet they didn’t even wait for the ink to dry. 

Ginny, she’s your mom, and she is only here for a few days, Mike sent back with what he hoped was a wave of calm. 

“So, we really got to know each other after that.” He turned to Ginny. “But I’ve seen you play. Used to come to a lot of your games, I mean, the whole town did. She was a sight to behold.” Kevin continued. Mike wondered how big of an idiot this guy was. He clearly couldn’t read the mood of the table.

“Still is,” Amelia agreed proudly. 

“Speaking of watching her games, um…” Janet started, and mike could already see where she was going. He couldn’t believe Ginny’s mom was as blind as her boyfriend. “We were hoping we could get kevin a ticket to the All-Star Game.”

“I only got the one for you, so…”

“It’s okay.” Kevin said. 

But Mike again tried to defuse the situation. “No, no, I have a couple I’m not using. Have at’em.”

Seriously?

Mike looked over at Ginny and Amelia. They both looked annoyed. 

“Thank you, Mike,” Janet said. 

“Wow, thanks.” Kevin added. 

“It’s not every day that your daughter’s an All-Star.”

“No, it is not.” Janet agreed.   
Dinner settled after that. They discussed what Janet had seen around the city, and Mike gave her a few ideas of other things she might enjoy. Kevin talked about the conference he had been attending and Mike even talked a bit more about the broadcasting gig. Amelia was able to give him a few pointers. Then Kevin had to bring up Bill Baker and Ginny stormed out, leaving him with Amelia. 

“Well, I was right. That was fun.” 

Mike sighed. It could have been worse. 

“Why did you tell Ginny about us? I mean, she seems ok with it, but I thought was agreed.”

Mike hesitated. He had agreed not to tell people that they were soulmates, but Amelia had asked him directly, and he didn’t feel great about lying to her. “We were talking, and it came up. I didn’t want to lie.”

“Well, I hope you were right about that,” she said as she stood from the table. 

“Do you think they staged all that to stick us with the bill?” he joked. 

Ginny fought sleep for as long as she could. She didn’t want to talk to Mike about their disastrous dinner. When sleep did find her, she wasn’t at Petco, or the driving range, or the beach. She was at a park. She spotted him sitting a swing and walked over.

“You went to sleep late,” he commented. She sat on the swing beside him and kicked off the ground in a gentle arc. 

“Yeah, I didn’t want to talk to you.” 

“That’s not very nice.”

“I know, but can we just not talk about it?”

“Sure, I have another question anyway.”

“What’s up?”

“Have you been able to hear my thoughts all along, or is this a new development? And did you know this was possible?”

Ginny chewed her lip. “I thought I heard you once, but I think it is getting more… I don’t know. I never cared about soulmates, so I never listened when other people talked about it.”

“But you definitely heard me at dinner?”

“I heard what you thought to me, but not like a running monologue. Did you hear everything from?”

“Not everything, just when you were projecting, I guess?”

“Oh, that good.”

“Why? What were you thinking?” he asked with a twitch of his lips. 

Ginny blushed, “Nothing like that, prev. I just don’t like the idea of you hearing every thought in my head, or me hearing every thought in your head.”

“That makes sense. This could come in handy at games though.”

“That’s true, but we have to be careful. Use your regular signals and keep your glove up if you want to say something. The last thing we need is someone picking up on this.”

“Speaking of that, Amelia asked me why I told you about us. I know we agreed not to tell people, but maybe just Amelia should know. If the story does come out at some point she won’t be completely blindsided.”  
“I need to think about it.”

“Fair enough, just let me know. Now, what do you say we go through hitters?” in a flash the ipad he used to watch game tape popped into his hand. 

The next day she didn’t see Mike or her mom. Petco was a zoo with players and press from across the country. The first familiar face she saw was Blip’s, which was a relief even though he was acting a little weird. Then Mike joined them to kick off the game. 

“Is my mom in your seats?”

Mike looked over and was immediately annoyed. That woman had the nerve to ask for tickets, and then no show on her daughter. That was the kind of thing he expected from his mom not hers. Still, he could tell Ginny wanted her to be there. “She’ll be here,” he promised. 

Ginny wasn’t so sure, but at least she had Mike and Blip. By the time she got put in the game in the sixth, she was a ball of nerves. Mike had told her not to pitch to Perez, but that wasn’t really and option anymore. She had to throw something. She looked to the stands, but her mom wasn’t there. She closed her eyes. 

Back in the locker room Mike watched as Ginny took the mound. You can do this. He thought, hoping she might hear him. 

Ginny set and looked toward home plate. Buster Posey gave her a nod. Damn, where had he been three months ago when she was praying for any catcher other than Mike. Then she heard it. Mike voice in her head. She threw the first pitch which sailed into Posey’s glove for a strike. Then another made its way over the plate. One more and she would be able to get out of there. She set, and threw, but this time the crack was heard around the field. She knew it was gone without even looking. She cursed into her mitt. 

Mike had to leave while she was still playing to make it to the taping. He ignored Oscar’s call, figuring whatever the front office wanted could wait. That was his first mistake. His second mistake was trying to be who he wasn’t. Spout stats and mindlessly regurgitating information was never going to be his style. He wasn’t a sports caster, he was a ball player. So, he spoke from the heart about the woman who had stolen his heart. Then he really got thrown for a loop, when they announced that Oscar had hired a new catcher. He knew he was on the way out, but this was a major blow. The rest of the broadcast past in a blur. He got home and was glad Amelia wasn’t there for once. 

When Ginny got back to her room after her talk with her mom it was still early. For the first time she was excited to fall asleep and see Mike. They were at Petco again, this time in the seats he had offered to her mom. 

“I’m sorry she didn’t come,” he started. 

“I’m sorry about Livan.”

“Like I said, he isn’t going to take my job.”

“He better not, because I would have done better with you out there.”

“You couldn’t have done any worse.”

“Listen, old man, if your bones weren’t so brittle, I might be celebrating right now.”

 

“You should still be celebrating, you’re an all-star. You know how many people in the history of the game can say that?”

“You know what? I’ll take that.” She pumped her shoulder into his. “I heard what you said about me…”

“On the air? I wasn’t talking about you. I was talking about the other female major leaguer.” He ginned at her and she blushed and shrugged away. “How you doing with the whole Mom- Kevin thing?”

“All good. How are you doing with the whole catcher coming to take your job thing? I heard he starts in El Paso next week.”

“All good.”


End file.
